11 - 15 June, Kabul, Afghanistan - The opening Workshop of the UNITAR Fellowship for Afghanistan was held successfully in Kabul recently. The four-day session saw the 62 Fellows of the 2012 Cycle receive presentations and undertake exercises examining Leadership, Projects and Development and Organizational Needs Assessment. Fellows were linked via video-conference with their Mentors from around the world, including Japan, Singapore, the United States, Canada, Chile and the Dominican Republic. The programme will also include Study Tours to the United Arab Emirates and Japan later in the year.

Fellowship Outline:

The Fellowship, running since 2003, is an annual seven-month long programme aiming at capacity building and enhancing the leadership, management and professional skills of a core group of senior government officials, academics and practitioners primarily from Afghanistan. Sharing Hiroshima's lessons in post-conflict reconstruction, the Fellowship discusses important themes such as organization development and change, project design and management, and human resource development/management. To date, the programme has over 300 graduates working today for the Afghanistan of tomorrow.

Objectives:

The Fellowship’s two long-term objectives are:

To support an Afghan cadre in the application of their increased knowledge, and confidence in the transformation of their respective ministries;

To build a committed and highly capable Fellowship community in Afghanistan which can serve as a resource for planning and implementing capacity-building and training activities at the local and national levels.